Richard Baxter: ‘O brethren, watch therefore over your own hearts: keep out lusts and passions, and worldly inclinations: keep up the life of faith and love, and zeal: be much at home, and be much with God.’ In Eph. 4:22-24 there is ‘put off/put on’; in 2 Timothy 2:22 it is ‘flee from/pursue after’.
1. Flee youthful desires.
– 2:22. The ESV has ‘flee youthful passions’, but it is the word for ‘desires’ (in 1 Tim. 3:1 it is a good desire).
– 1 Cor. 6:18; 10:14; 1 Tim. 6:10-11; Lot did not flee Sodom (Gen. 19:14-16).
2. Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.
Nobody grows with an empty head or with no desires. In Buddhism the state of nirvana is the state where there are no desires, but in Christianity evil desires are replaced by godly ones.
- righteousness. 2 Tim. 3:16. ‘Training in righteousness’ means that it takes hard work.
- faith. Faith here is faithfulness. Gal. 5:22-23.
- love. 1 Cor. 13:13.
- Peace. Rom. 14:17.
3. Do so in the context of good fellowship.
– 2:22; see Malachi 3:15; Eph. 4:15-16. Surround yourself with the wrong company and it hard indeed to flee youthful desires, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.
We all have work to do. Flee what needs to be fled, pursue what should be pursued, and fellowship with those who call on the Lord from a true heart.
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